Need advice on a gaming laptop.

[UltraMagnus]

first, i should point out, i am not that at home talking about gaming hardware or the latest games, mostly because my old laptop only had a 128mb graphics "card", so if i say something that is really ignorant, you will have to forgive me.

now, i am looking for a gaming laptop. now, i want it to actually have a half decent battery life, so most of those "desktop replacement" monsters with dual SLI graphics are kinda out. I am looking for something that can play the "latest" (like i have said, no idea what these are, only one i know of is C&C 3) games on something around "medium" graphics settings, and last gen games such as planetside and oblivion (that my old laptop could play on low) on "high" graphics settings. DX10 support would be a plus, however i must wonder how many DX10 requiring games would run on whatever laptop i get.

the "MESH GX610" looks rather appealing currently, as it seems to have a good balance between portability and gaming performance, would this be sufficient for what i need? or would you recommend something different?

thanks in advance!

[staffsMike]

this should sort you
http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=121049

vostro 1500 is fantastic value for money and a prefect laptop for medium detail gaming.

the mesh (MSI i think) is essentially it's amd equivalent. I think the vostro would be better performance but the HD2600 is a great mobile GPU.. so it's swings and round abouts..

[UltraMagnus]

hmm, looks rather good. there won't be any problems ordering from their business thing will there?

any upgrades you recommend i get?

thanks

[staffsMike]

Nope you can order anything you want on there, it's just aimed at business users..sort of lol

[UltraMagnus]

i have just noticed, that laptops graphics card only has 256mbs of ram, wont that impact negatively on its performance compared to the 512mb on the one i linked to? i have looked at some benchmarks but they don't really make clear what memory the card had, would a 256mb 8600M GT compare to a 512mb HD2600?

thanks in advance! (again!)

[Rosaline]

More memory does not equal more power, remember. It is used to hold the frame buffer (so the higher your monitor resolution, the more you will need) and to hold textures (higher quality textures take up more room). A laptop display, even if upgraded, will have a low enough resolution for 256Mb to be plenty for the frame buffer, and to be honest, shipped textures with games have yet to really push the limits.

Myself and my partner ordered a pair of Vostro 1500's last friday (15003, with the 8600M GT), upgraded to 2.2GHz C2D, 9-cell battery and a 1440x900 display, which came to £669 each including VAT (however only including 1 year's warranty) and I managed to haggle free delivery. The first of them arrived this morning, and I have to say, we are very pleased with it. It runs the latest source based games very well indeed, with everything turned up to full.

The Mobility HD2600 included on the Mesh system would probably be beaten by the 8600M GT on most games, but may be better on bioshock and other future releases. The g8x architecture used in the 8600M GT also offers a small degree of 'free' visual quality improvement.

In fairness to the mesh system, the best feature on it for me be the fact that, from the photograph on the Mesh page, it appears that Mesh squeezed in a proper numpad. If you can't live without one, then there is obviously no contest here!

However, you have stated that the killer feature for you is battery life, and for that an upgraded Vosto system, with a battery that is 50% larger than normal laptop batteries, will probably not be beaten.

[staffsMike]

If it's just the HD2600 and not the XT then the 8600GT is faster.

All I know is the 8600GT runs rainbow six vegas on fairly decent settings (looks lovely) and thats a good enough benchmark for me. My mate has one and it's very good. Same spec as above really just the 6 cell battery which lasts about 2.5 hours surfing etc..

1440 x 900 screen is deffinatly worth it.

[UltraMagnus]

thanks then, i guess the vostro it is

umm, just a few more questions if you don't mind
1) what is the build quality like? i have never actually owned a dell and have read that it can be appauling
2) how exactly do you haggle with dell, should i just go straight ahead and say "give me free shipping damnit!"
3) how much commission is dell giving you?

thanks in advance!

[staffsMike]

The quality on is actually very good. Some dells are pretty naff but the vostro is very nice and the screen is beautiful (true life 1440 x 900)

Call them up and tell them exactly what you want first. Then using the site price as a guide see what they come up with (usually more). Then say you only have x amount to spend so what can you do for me. You can also say there's other laptops you want.. HP will normall strike a nerve with them

I couldn't possibly tell you how much commision i'm getting ..but it's more than me paying them and less than them paying me

One of the reason's I buy dell's is mainly for the onsite warranty. I like to know if it's going to break it will be fixed the next day. I also like sony.. you could look at the FZ models especially if blu ray interests you

[Rosaline]

The build quality seems excellent!

The laptop is heavier than I expected, but lighter than you might fear. It feels just right, really. Some of the lighter laptops feel like they would fall over in a light breeze and seem too unstable to actually use on your lap - which you can happily do for low-power uses with the vostro, it's cool enough when simply reading websites and the like

In my experience, weightier things feel less fragile, and the Vostro 1500 certainly seems hard to break. The underside is nice and clean, too. The screen is frankly amazing, I want a desktop monitor like that!

It also comes with a small custom OS installed, which boots rapidly to allow you quick access to media files. Even better, it is shipped with a restore CD, so you can get rid of it and put it back as needed (in theory, anyhow). I'm not sure if it comes with a restore CD for MS Works, however.

All that is based on playing around with my partner's system - I'll know better tomorrow morning when my own turns up!

When it comes to haggling, take their quote, subtract 10%, round down to the nearest whole figure, and state that as your budget after they give you the quote You can also play up looking into the competition, and the fact that a free shipping offer has just ended. If you don't manage one of the unbelievably large discounts some people got, don't worry, it's still good value either way

As for commission... dang, I knew there was something I was forgetting to arrange

[usxhe190]

i agree with the others, get the vostro, best price/performance at the moment, build quality is good but quite heavy (because it uses mag alloy)

[UltraMagnus]

one more question...

do you think it will run crysis on medium or high graphics settings? or have any of you tried running the beta on one?

thanks in advance!

[staffsMike]

it'll deffinatly do ok with dx9. DX10 more is difficult to say at this point.

It's a really strong card for a laptop and if you really want more from it.. it overclocks by a fair bit with tolerable temperatures.

Having seen how it handles R6 Vegas which is a tough old game for any pc and colin mcrae dirt, i've got a lot of confidence in it.

[Rosaline]

The 8700M GT, the next (and best DX10) model up, is just an overclocked 8600M GT Same transistors and everything

StaffsMike, you don't happen to know if there's a way to set it up to detect AC power and if found, overclock the GPU? That would be awesome

It should most certainly run Crysis reasonably with medium settings! Odds are, you might be able to pull one or two up to high quality, too, depending on your personal preferences.

I'm going to make a discussion thread for talking about experimenting with replacing the mediaDirect boot entirely with linux. It's exclusive to Dell, so it should really go in the pre-built section, but some people might find it generally interesting and the general hardware forum is more busy :S Can I have some advice on where to make it?

[staffsMike]

Well essentially the graphics cards do that already. When you go to power saving mode (on the battery) they underclock and will never give you full performance if you try and game like that it will be useless until you turn power management off.

Whether they still do it after you overclock I don't actually know. I might overclock my 8400GS at some point but I havn't had much time to play games recently so havn't bothered.

[usxhe190]

one more question...

do you think it will run crysis on medium or high graphics settings? or have any of you tried running the beta on one?

thanks in advance!

i don't think so on DX10, 8600GT is sort of like the 8600GTS....